Opal 77: Skewed Space (Jerrie)

Part 26

But Jade said it would make things easier. They would know if something was about to go wrong before it was too late. She could do a systems analysis from bed, spend less time walking the halls or popping in to check on things.

"T-This is redundant." Perrie stammered. "I was able to manage just fine by, by myself. It was okay as it is— was. You don't need to change it."

Jade turned around in her chair at Perrie's distressed tone. "Hey, it's not a big deal." She said, trying and failing to calm the blonde down. She started to pace around the room, mumbling to herself as she did so.

"Bubba, woah. It's okay." The brunette got to her feet and approached slowly, hands held in front of her in a none-threatening manner. "If you want me to stop I will. Just take a breath."

Perrie whined as their eyes met, covering her ears with her hands.

"What's wrong?" Jade asked, laying a hand on the blondes shoulder. This seemed to be the wrong choice as the blonde bounced back, crumbling to the floor into a tiny ball as she covered her ears.

"It hurts!" She shouted, causing Jade's heart to stop as she watched blood drip from between Perrie's fingers, they were clasped tightly against her ears. "Don't you hear that ringing?"

After that it was a mad scramble. They rushed her to the med bay, running tests to figure out what was wrong. Each one came back negative for anything logical, citing the cause of blood from damage to the eardrum. There was a sound that Perrie was hearing that no one else was, and it was excruciatingly painful for her. So they sedated her, putting nose canceling plugs in her ears to prevent farther damage. The three friends knew that her ears would heal, seeing as she'd been through worse.

The next thing they did was tear the ship apart. There had to be something here that was creating a frequency strong enough to damage the super human's hearing. Immobilizing her in such a way that she couldn't even stand.

"Try again." Jesy commanded. They were huddled around the control pad Jade had hooked up to the computer in the command center.

"We've done this three times already." Jade replied with a forlorn tone.

"Well maybe you're doing it wrong."

"I'm sorry, would you like to create a program from scratch that can scan the ship for abnormalities you aren't even sure of? I'll just move out of the way—"

"Guys," Leigh-Anne interrupted before things got too heated. "Arguing doesn't help. How can we come up with a solution if you're too busy yelling at each other!"

"Sorry." Jesy mumbled, hanging her head in defeat. Meanwhile Jade had walked off to the huge windows, studying the vast darkness she was met with. She rested her forehead against the glass, surprised at how warm it was. When she opened her eyes she could see the nose of the ship, it's chipped red paneling reflecting back at her. With furrowed brows she typed a few things into the pad, changing the scan to only include the outside of the ship. Her eyes narrowed as the notification came up, confirming that there was an unidentified electric device attached to the outer paneling of the ship. With excitement she called the other girls over, explaining what she had found.

An hour later they were in the med bay, the device disassembled on the table in front of them.

"A tracker." Perrie croaked from her position in Jade's lap. She had woken up once the rag-tag crew had brought it into the ship, promptly resting her head in her girls lap once she sat down on the foot of her bed. "How'd that get there?"

"And when?" Leigh-Anne added. "And who? And why?"

"And what made you react like that to it?" Jade asked as she threaded her fingers through Perrie's hair. A dark look fell over the blondes face as she sat up, ignoring the curious stare Jade was giving her.